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The Wing and Wing by J. Fenimore Cooper

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This was more than Ithuel could bear. All his personal wrongs, and sooth
to say they had been of a most grievous nature, arose before his mind,
incited and inflamed by national dislike; and he broke out into such an
incoherent tirade of abuse, as completely set all Filippo's knowledge of
English at fault, rendering a translation impossible. By this time,
Ithuel had swallowed so much of the wine, a liquor which had far more
body than he supposed, that he was ripe for mischief, and it was only
his extreme violence that prevented him from betraying more than, just
at the moment, would have been prudent. The vice-governatore listened
with attention, in the hope of catching something useful; but it all
came to his ears a confused mass of incoherent vituperation, from which
he could extract nothing. The scene, consequently, soon became
unpleasant, and Andrea Barrofaldi took measures to put an end to it.
Watching a favorable occasion to speak, he put in a word, as the excited
Bolt paused an instant to take breath.

"Signore," observed the vice-governatore, "all this may be very true;
but as coming from one who serves the Inglese, to one who is the servant
of their ally, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is quite as extraordinary
as it is uncalled for; and we will talk of other things. This lugger, on
board which you sail, is out of all question English, notwithstanding
what you tell us of the nation."

"Aye, _she_ is English," answered Ithuel, with a grim smile, "and a
pretty boat she is. But then it is no fault of hers, and what can't be
cured must be endured. A Guernsey craft, and a desperate goer, when she
wakes up and puts on her travelling boots."

"These mariners have a language of their own," remarked, Andrea to Vito
Viti, smiling as in consideration of Ithuel's nautical habits; "to you
and me, the idea of a vessel's using boots, neighbor, seems ridiculous;
but the seamen, in their imaginations, bestow all sorts of objects on
them. It is curious to hear them converse, good Vito; and now I am
dwelling here on our island, I have often thought of collecting a number
of their images, in order to aid in illustrating the sort of literature
that belongs to their calling. This idea of a lugger's putting on her
boots is quite heroic."

Now Vito Viti, though an Italian with so musical a name, was no poet,
but a man so very literal, withal, as to render him exceedingly matter
of fact in most of his notions. Accordingly, he saw no particular
beauty in the idea of a vessel's wearing boots; and, though much
accustomed to defer to the vice-governatore's superior knowledge and
more extensive reading, he had the courage, on this occasion, to put in
an objection to the probability of the circumstance mentioned.

"Signor Vice-governatore," he replied, "all is not gold that glitters.
Fine words sometimes cover poor thoughts, and, I take it, this is an
instance of what I mean. Long as I have lived in Porto Ferrajo, and that
is now quite fifty years, seeing that I was born here, and have been off
the island but four times in my life--and long, therefore, as I have
lived here, I never saw a vessel in the harbor that wore boots, or
even shoes."

"This is metaphorical, good Vito, and must be looked at in a poetical
point of view. Homer speaks of goddesses holding shields before their
favorite warriors; while Ariosto makes rats and asses hold discourse
together, as if they were members of an academy. All this is merely the
effect of imagination, Signore; and he who has the most is the aptest at
inventing circumstances, which, though not strictly true, are vastly
agreeable."

"As for Homer and Ariosto, Signor Vice-governatore, I doubt if either
ever saw a vessel with a boot on, or if either ever knew as much about
craft in general as we who live here in Porto Ferrajo. Harkee, friend
Filippo, just ask this Americano if, in his country, he ever saw vessels
wear boots. Put the question plainly, and without any of your
accursed poetry."

Filippo did as desired, leaving Ithuel to put his own construction on
the object of the inquiry; all that had just passed being sealed to him,
in consequence of its having been uttered in good Tuscan.

"Boots!" repeated the native of the Granite state, looking round him
drolly; "perhaps not exactly the foot-part, and the soles, for they
ought, in reason, to be under water; but every vessel that isn't
coppered shows her boot-_top_--of _them_, I'll swear I've seen ten
thousand, more or less."

This answer mystified the vice-governatore, and completely puzzled Vito
Viti. The grave mariners at the other table, too, thought it odd, for in
no other tongue is the language of the sea as poetical, or figurative,
as in the English; and the term of _boot-top,_ as applied to a vessel,
was Greek to them, as well as to the other listeners. They conversed
among themselves on the subject, while their two superiors were holding
a secret conference on the other side of the room, giving the American
time to rally his recollection, and remember the precise circumstances
in which not only he himself, but all his shipmates, were placed. No one
could be more wily and ingenious than this man, when on his guard,
though the inextinguishable hatred with which he regarded England and
Englishmen had come so near causing him to betray a secret which it was
extremely important, at that moment, to conceal. At length a general
silence prevailed, the different groups of speakers ceasing to converse,
and all looking towards the vice-governatore, as if in expectation that
he was about to suggest something that might give a turn to the
discourse. Nor was this a mistake, for, after inquiring of Benedetta if
she had a private room, he invited Ithuel and the interpreter to follow
him into it, leading the way, attended by the podesta. As soon as these
four were thus separated from the others, the door was closed, and the
two Tuscans came at once to the point.

"Signor Americano," commenced the vice-governatore, "between those who
understand each other, there is little need of many words. This is a
language which is comprehended all over the world, and I put it before
you in the plainest manner, that we may have no mistake."

"It is tolerable plain, sartain!" exclaimed
Ithuel--"two--four--six--eight--ten--all good-looking gold pieces, that
in this part of the world you call _zecchini_--or sequins, as we name
'em, in English. What have I done, Signor Squire, or what am I to do
for these twenty dollars? Name your tarms; this working in the dark is
ag'in the grain of my natur'!"

"You are to tell the _truth_; we suspect the lugger of being French; and
by putting the proof in our hands, you will make us your friends, and
serve yourself."

Andrea Barrofaldi knew little of America and Americans, but he had
imbibed the common European notion that money was the great deity
worshipped in this hemisphere, and that all he had to do was to offer a
bribe, in order to purchase a man of Ithuel's deportment and appearance.
In his own island ten sequins would buy almost any mariner of the port
to do any act short of positive legal criminality; and the idea that a
barbarian of the west would refuse such a sum, in preference to selling
his shipmates, never crossed his mind. Little, however, did the Italian
understand the American. A greater knave than Ithuel, in his own way, it
was not easy to find; but it shocked all his notions of personal
dignity, self-respect, and republican virtue, to be thus unequivocally
offered a bribe; and had the lugger not been so awkwardly circumstanced,
he would have been apt to bring matters to a crisis at once by throwing
the gold into the vice-governatore's face; although, knowing where it
was to be found, he might have set about devising some means of cheating
the owner out of it at the very next instant. Boon or bribe, directly or
unequivocally offered in the shape of money, as coming from the superior
to the inferior, or from the corrupter to the corrupted, had he never
taken, and it would have appeared in his eyes a species of degradation
to receive the first, and of treason to his nationality to accept the
last; though he would lie, invent, manage, and contrive, from morning
till night, in order to transfer even copper from the pocket of his
neighbor to his own, under the forms of opinion and usage. In a word,
Ithuel, as relates to such things, is what is commonly called
law-honest, with certain broad salvoes, In favor of smuggling of all
sorts, in foreign countries (at home he never dreamed of such a thing),
custom-house oaths, and legal trickery; and this is just the class of
men apt to declaim the loudest against the roguery of the rest of
mankind. Had there been a law giving half to the informer, he might not
have hesitated to betray the lugger, and all she contained, more
especially in the way of regular business; but he had long before
determined that every Italian was a treacherous rogue, and not at all to
be trusted like an American rogue; and then his indomitable dislike of
England would have kept him true in a case of much less complicated risk
than this. Commanding himself, however, and regarding the sequins with
natural longing, he answered with a simplicity of manner that both
surprised and imposed on the vice-governatore.

"No--no--Signor Squire," he said; "in the first place, I've no secret to
tell; and it would be a trickish thing to touch your money and not give
you its worth in return; and then the lugger is Guernsey built, and
carries a good King George's commission. In my part of the world we
never take gold unless we sell something of equal valie. Gifts and
begging we look upon as mean and unbecoming, and the next thing to going
on to the town as a pauper; though if I can sarve you lawfully, like,
I'm just as willing to work for _your_ money as for that of any other
man. I've no preference for king's in that partic'lar."

All this time Ithuel held out the sequins, with a show of returning
them, though in a very reluctant manner, leaving Andrea, who
comprehended his actions much better than his words, to understand that
he declined selling his secret.

"You can keep the money, friend," observed the vice-governatore, "for
when we give, in Italy, it is not our practice to take the gift back
again. In the morning, perhaps, you will remember something that it may
be useful for me to know."

"I've no occasion for gifts, nor is it exactly accordin' to the Granite
rule to accept 'em," answered Ithuel, a little sharply. "Handsome
conduct is handsome conduct; and I call the fellow-creetur' that would
oppress and overcome another with a gift, little better than an English
aristocrat. Hand out the dollars in the way of trade, in as large
amounts as you will, and I will find the man, and that, too, in the
lugger, who will see you out in't to your heart's content. Harkee,
Philip-o; tell the gentleman, in an undertone, like, about the three
kegs of tobacco we got out of the Virginy ship the day we made the north
end of Corsica, and perhaps that will satisfy him we are not his
enemies. There is no use in bawling it out so that the woman can hear
what you say, or the men who are drinking in the other room."

"Signor Ithuello," answered the Genoese, in English, "it will not do to
let these gentlemen know anything of them kegs--one being the
deputy-governor and the other a magistrate. The lugger will be seized
for a smuggler, which will be the next thing to being seized for
an enemy."

"Yet I've a longing for them 'ere sequins, to tell you the truth,
Philip-o! I see no other means of getting at 'em, except it be through
them three kegs of tobacco."

"Why you don't take 'em, when the Signore put 'em into your very hand?
All you do is put him in your pocket, and say, 'Eccellenza, what you
please to wish?'"

"That isn't Granite, man, but more in the natur' of you Italians. The
most disgraceful thing on 'airth is a paupe"--so Ithuel pronounced
"pauper"--"the next is a street-beggar; after him comes your chaps who
takes sixpences and shillin's, in the way of small gifts; and last of
all an Englishman. All these I despise; but let this Signore say but the
word, in the way of trade, and he'll find me as ready and expairt as he
can wish. I'd defy the devil in a trade!"

Filippo shook his head, positively declining to do so foolish a thing as
to mention a contraband article to those whose duty it would be to
punish a violation of the revenue laws. In the meanwhile the sequins
remained in the hands of Andrea Barrofaldi, who seemed greatly at a
loss to understand the character of the strange being whom chance had
thus thrown in his way. The money was returned to his purse, but his
distrust and doubts were by no means removed.

"Answer me one thing, Signor Bolto," asked the vice-governatore, after a
minute of thought; "if you hate the English so much, why do you serve in
their ships? why not quit them on the first good occasion? The land is
as wide as the sea, and you must be often on it."

"I calculate, Signor Squire, you don't often study charts, or you
wouldn't fall into such a consait. There's twice as much water as solid
ground on this 'airth, to begin with; as in reason there ought to be,
seeing that an acre of good productive land is worth five or six of
oceans; and then you have little knowledge of my character and prospects
to ask such a question. I sarve the king of England to make him pay well
for it. If you want to take an advantage of a man, first get him in
debt; then you can work your will on him in the most profitable and
safe manner!"

All this was unintelligible to the vice-governatore, who, after a few
more questions and answers, took a civil leave of the strangers,
intimating to Benedetta that they were not to follow him back into the
room he had just quitted.

As for Ithuel, the disappearance of the two gentlemen gave him no
concern; but as he felt that it might be unsafe to drink any more wine,
he threw down his reckoning, and strolled into the street, followed by
his companion. Within an hour from that moment, the three kegs of
tobacco were in the possession of a shopkeeper of the place, that brief
interval sufficing to enable the man to make his bargain, and to deliver
the articles, which was his real object on shore. This little smuggling
transaction was carried on altogether without the knowledge of Raoul
Yvard, who was to all intents and purposes the captain of his own
lugger, and in whose character there were many traits of chivalrous
honor, mixed up with habits and pursuits that would not seem to promise
qualities so elevated. But this want of a propensity to turn a penny in
his own way was not the only distinguishing characteristic between the
commander of the little craft and the being he occasionally used as a
mask to his true purposes.





CHAPTER V.

"The great contention of the sea and skies
Parted our fellowship;--But, hark! a sail!"

Cassio

Whatever may have been the result of the vice-governatore's further
inquiries and speculations that night, they were not known. After
consuming an hour in the lower part of the town, in and around the port,
he and the podesta sought their homes and their pillows, leaving the
lugger riding quietly at her anchor in the spot where she was last
presented to the reader's attention. If Raoul Yvard and Ghita had
another interview, too, it was so secretly managed as to escape all
observation, and can form no part of this narrative.

A Mediterranean morning, at midsummer, is one of those balmy and
soothing periods of the day that affect the mind as well as the body.
Everywhere we have the mellow and advancing light that precedes the
appearance of the sun--the shifting hues of the sky--that pearly
softness that seems to have been invented to make us love the works of
God's hand and the warm glow of the brilliant sun; but it is not
everywhere that these fascinating changes occur, on a sea whose blue
vies with the darkest depths of the void of space, beneath a climate
that is as winning as the scenes it adorns, and amid mountains whose
faces reflect every varying shade of light with the truth and the poetry
of nature. Such a morning as this last was that which succeeded the
night with which our tale opened, bringing with it the reviving
movements of the port and town. Italy, as a whole, is remarkable for an
appearance of quiet and repose that are little known in the more
bustling scenes of the greedier commerce of our own quarter of the
world, or, indeed, in those of most of the northern nations of Europe.
There is in her aspect, modes of living, and even in her habits of
business, an air of decayed gentility that is wanting to the ports,
shops, and marts of the more vulgar parts of the world; as if conscious
of having been so long the focus of human refinement, it was unbecoming,
in these later days, to throw aside all traces of her history and power.
Man, and the climate, too, seem in unison; one meeting the cares of life
with a _far niente_ manner that is singularly in accordance with the
dreamy and soothing atmosphere he respires.

Just as day dawned, the fall of a billet of wood on the deck of the
Feu-Follet gave the first intimation that any one was stirring in or
near the haven. If there had been a watch on board that craft throughout
the night--and doubtless such had been the case--it had been kept in so
quiet and unobtrusive a manner as to render it questionable to the
jealous eyes which had been riveted on her from the shore until long
past midnight. Now, however, everything was in motion, and in less than
five minutes after that billet of wood had fallen from the hands of the
cook, as he was about to light his galley fire, the tops of the hats and
caps of some fifty or sixty sailors were seen moving to and fro, just
above the upper edge of the bulwarks. Three minutes later, and two men
appeared near the knight-heads, each with his arms folded, looking at
the vessel's hawse, and taking a survey of the state of the harbor, and
of objects on the surrounding shore.

The two individuals who were standing in the conspicuous position named
were Raoul Yvard himself, and Ithuel Bolt. Their conversation was in
French, the part borne by the last being most execrably pronounced, and
paying little or no attention to grammar; but it is necessary that we
should render what was said by both into the vernacular, with the
peculiarities that belonged to the men.

"I see only the Austrian that is worth the trouble of a movement,"
quietly observed Raoul, whose eye was scanning the inner harbor, his own
vessel lying two hundred yards without it, it will be remembered--"and
she is light, and would scarce pay for sending her to Toulon. These
feluccas would embarrass us, without affording much reward, and then
their loss would ruin the poor devils of owners, and bring misery into
many a family."

"Well, that's a new idee, for a privateer!" said Ithuel sneeringly;
"luck's luck, in these matters, and every man must count on what war
turns up. I wish you'd read the history of _our_ revolution, and then
you'd ha' seen that liberty and equality are not to be had without some
ups and downs in fortin's and chances."

"The Austrian _might_ do," added Raoul, who paid little attention to his
companion's remarks, "if he were a streak or two lower in the
water--but, after all, E-too-_ell_,"--for so he pronounced the other's
name--"I do not like a capture that is made without any _eclat_, or
spirit, in the attack and defence."

"Well,"--this word Ithuel invariably pronounced, "wa-a-l"--"well, to my
notion, the most profitable and the most agreeable battles are the
shortest; and the pleasantest victories are them in which there's the
most prize money, Howsever, as that brig is only an Austrian, I care
little what you may detairmine to do with her; was she English, I'd head
a boat myself, to go in and tow her out here, expressly to have the
satisfaction of burning her. English ships make a cheerful fire!"

"And that would be a useless waste of property, and perhaps of blood,
and would do no one any good, Etoo_ell_."

"But it would do the accursed English _harm_, and that counts for a
something, in my reckoning. Nelson wasn't so over-scrupulous, at the
Nile, about burning your ships, Mr. Rule--"

"_Tonnerre!_ why do you always bring in that _malheureux _ Nile?--Is it
not enough that we were beaten--disgraced--destroyed--that a friend must
tell us of it so often?"

"You forget, Mr. Rule, that I was an _inimy, then_" returned Ithuel,
with a grin and a grim smile. "If you'll take the trouble to examine my
back, you'll find on it the marks of the lashes I got for just telling
my Captain that it was ag'in the grain for me, a republican as I was by
idee and natur', to fight other republicans. He told, me he would first
try the grain of my skin, and see how that would agree with what he
called my duty; and I must own, he got the best on't; I fit like a tiger
ag'in you, rather than be flogged twice the same day. Flogging on a sore
back is an awful argument!"

"And now has come the hour of revenge, _pauvre Etooell; _ this time you
are on the right side, and may fight with heart and mind those you so
much hate."

A long and gloomy silence followed, during which Raoul turned his face
aft, and stood looking at the movements of the men as they washed the
decks, while Ithuel seated himself on a knight-head, and his chin
resting on his hand, he sat ruminating, in bitterness of spirit, like
Milton's devil, in some of his dire cogitations, on the atrocious wrong
of which he had really been the subject. Bodies of men are proverbially
heartless. They commit injustice without reflection, and vindicate their
abuses without remorse. And yet it may be doubtful if either a nation or
an individual ever tolerated or was an accessory in a wrong, that the
act, sooner or later, did not recoil on the offending party, through
that mysterious principle of right which is implanted in the nature of
things, bringing forth its own results as the seed produces its grain,
and the tree its fruits; a supervision of holiness that it is usual to
term (and rightly enough, when we remember who created principles) the
providence of God. Let that people dread the future, who, in their
collective capacity, systematically encourage injustice of any sort;
since their own eventual demoralization will follow as a necessary
consequence, even though they escape punishment in a more direct form.

We shall not stop to relate the moody musings of the New Hampshire man.
Unnurtured, and, in many respects, unprincipled as he was, he had his
clear conceptions of the injustice of which he had been one among
thousands of other victims; and, at that moment, he would have held life
itself as a cheap sacrifice, could he have had his fill of revenge. Time
and again, while a captive on board the English ship in which he had
been immured for years, had he meditated the desperate expedient of
blowing up the vessel; and had not the means been wanting, mercenary and
selfish as he ordinarily seemed, he was every way equal to executing so
dire a scheme, in order to put an end to the lives of those who were the
agents in wronging him, and his own sufferings, together. The subject
never recurred to his mind without momentarily changing the current of
its thoughts, and tinging all his feelings with an intensity of
bitterness that it was painful to bear. At length, sighing heavily, he
rose from the knight-head, and turned toward the mouth of the bay, as if
to conceal from Raoul the expression of his countenance. This act,
however, was scarcely done, ere he started, and an exclamation escaped
him that induced his companion to turn quickly on his heel and face the
sea. There, indeed, the growing light enabled both to discover an object
that could scarcely be other than one of interest to men in their
situation.

It has been said already that the deep bay, on the side of which stands
the town of Porto Ferrajo, opens to the north, looking in the direction
of the headland of Piombino. On the right of the bay, the land, high and
broken, stretches several miles ere it forms what is called the Canal,
while, on the left, it terminates with the low bluff on which stands
the residence then occupied by Andrea Barrofaldi; and which has since
become so celebrated as the abode of one far greater than the worthy
vice-governatore. The haven lying under these heights, on the left of
the bay and by the side of the town, it followed, as a matter of course,
that the anchorage of the lugger was also in this quarter of the bay,
commanding a clear view to the north, in the direction of the main land,
as far as the eye could reach. The width of the Canal, or of the passage
between Elba and the Point of Piombino, may be some six or seven miles;
and at the distance of less than one mile from the northern end of the
former stands a small rocky islet, which has since become known to the
world as the spot on which Napoleon stationed a corporal's guard, by way
of taking possession, when he found his whole empire dwindled to the
sea-girt mountains in its vicinity. With the existence and position of
this island both Raoul and Ithuel were necessarily acquainted, for they
had seen it and noted its situation the previous night, though it had
escaped their notice that, from the place where the Feu-Follet had
brought up, it was not visible. In their first look to seaward, that
morning, which was ere the light had grown sufficiently strong to render
the houses on the opposite side of the bay distinct, an object had been
seen in this quarter which had then been mistaken for the rock; but by
this time the light was strong enough to show that it was a very
different thing. In a word, that which both Raoul and Ithuel had fancied
an islet was neither more nor less than a ship.